Ross's Micro Blog

The dad in this video has totally nailed parenting. What an inspiration! (The kid is cool too!)

https://youtu.be/kjwjyRAxGGw?si=z5zkf4EiQ8078qmj

Thanks for the recommendation @davatron5000

A THREE BLOG POST DAY!!!

Let's check in on those habits I was making for a better me in 2024.

(Spoiler: Covid has really messed things up this last week or so! But… doing really well generally!)

https://rosswintle.uk/2024/02/how-are-those-new-habits-going/

I've finished reading, not one, but TWO books in 2024!

Brief thoughts on both of them:

Doughnut Economics: https://rosswintle.uk/2024/02/book-doughnut-economics-by-kate-raworth/

Indie Microblogging: https://rosswintle.uk/2024/02/book-indie-microblogging-by-manton-reece/

– All holes are par 6.
– Fairway boosts your shot
– Sand reduces your shot
– You can always choose to “putt” (move 1 space)

The course algorithm is really interesting and hard to get right.

I plot a single tee, fairway, hole, water and sand tile. And each “grows” according to some rules.

But it’s not perfect. You sometimes get straight-lines and odd shapes. Needs refinement.

The paper people did real good!

I wasn’t going to share this because:
– it’s kinda boring
– it’s a digital rip-off of something that was explicitly anti-digital
– it’s worse than the original

But I made it. So here it is…

A one-page, dice-based golf game:

https://golf.pico.games/

I mostly made this because I thought the random course-generation was an interesting algorithm.

I did an OK job, but others have done better.

Implemented in HTML/CSS/Tailwind/AlpineJS.

Please buy this … it’s much better!

https://gladdendesign.com/products/paper-apps-golf

I _think_ I got my browser-based Markdown notes app working for non-Chrome/Chromium browsers.

https://notes.veryuseful.app/

Without the filesystem write API you need to do a manual save. But notes are persisted in local storage until you do that.

(On Chrome it autosaves every few seconds)

Seems like a good solution for now.

Added some instructions too!

Loving these little tinkerings!

Hang on… @pidgin still exists! What?! 🤯

My kid is learning logic gates in computing at school.

Sent him out the door today with a cheery “Enjoy learning about logic gates today! Or…not?”

🥸

Ugh. This Covid is BAD. I don’t remember being so ill for so long for YEARS. Sure I’ve had lingering colds and viruses. But nothing quite like I’ve felt this week. 😭

Yay! My @ivory subscription just went out.

Worth every penny just as Tweetbot was.

A delightful app that I'm in literally every day.

And yes, I pay my @fosstodon maintainers too. 🥰

The problem with someone like me being ill is that you sit in bed reading the Whole Internet and being filled with ideas for things you want to do but really don’t have energy for right now.

My todo list has exploded!!

I like @kev’s Pen Pals idea: https://kevquirk.com/penpals

(Apart from the conversation being public)

Anyone want to exchange emails for a month? Seems like a good way to connect with some new people!

Tried out Arc’s search app yesterday. What a strange thing! Not sure what to make of it. Seems to be good at a very limited subset of search types.

But also… will people end up paying for the scraper AI and not rewarding the content creators?

That seems weird. But then… how different is this to what Google search does these days?

Woke up thinking I felt a lot better. (And relative to yesterday I do!) But then stood up and walked about ten paces and…

nope…

definitely still fighting Covid.

I also wrote up a cheeky bit of Facebook scraping I did with JavaScript at the weekend to get birthdays to put in my non-Facebook calendar.

I don’t know if this is useful to anyone else. But seemed good to make a note of.

https://rosswintle.uk/2024/01/scraping-birthdays-from-facebook/

Proper finished off my write up of my new little mic setup for Zoom calls. Not happy with the writing but…

Key points:
– I realised my sound was awful on Zoom calls
– My ideal setup involves no software, is portable, and eliminates as much background noise as possible.
– I settled on a wireless clip-on lavalier mic.
– And it’s a great little gadget!

https://rosswintle.uk/2024/01/audio-gear-portable-mic-for-noisy-room/

From my sick bed we have just watched the final episode of BBC’s Ghosts having only started watching it a few months back.

What utterly delightful TV! Wholesome, quaint, funny, wise. OK the production values aren’t blockbuster-level, but we’ve enjoyed it so much.

I’ll miss them all.

Well THAT was a very lucky guess… #Wordle

Wordle 954 3/6

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I often wish I had stayed in an industry where building software carefully was paramount. (I worked in safety-critical software for a while)

It seems I’m unable to skip on thoroughness.

Standards and automation is what fixes this, but you have to bake it in from the beginning.

Otherwise you have to slow down in the short term to speed up in the long term.

And if your goal is always to move fast, you’re stuck! Which makes you (well, me) slow in the short term and even slower in the long term.